The Project Gutenberg EBook of How to Marry Well, by Mrs. Hungerford

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Title: How to Marry Well

Author: Mrs. Hungerford

Release Date: December 25, 2008 [EBook #27624]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW TO MARRY WELL ***

Produced by Daniel Fromont

[Transcriber's note: Mrs. Hungerford (Margaret Wolfe Hamilton)
(1855?-1897) "How to marry well" (from The Ladies' Home Journal
vol. VII No IV Philadelphia March 1890 p.6)]

The Duchess

How to marry well

Some girls start in life with the idea that to snub the opposite sex is
the surest way of bringing it to their feet. All such imaginings are
vain! A man may be amused by the coquettish impertinences of a girl, he
may even be attracted by it to a certain extent, but in the end he
feels repulsion, and unless it be the exception that proves the rule,
hastens away presently to lay his name and fortune at the disposal of
some more modest girl.

To marry _well_ is the note that strikes more clearly on the brain of
the debutante's mother than on the ear of that interesting person
herself. A girl starting in life feels all the world is before her
where to choose. She gives, indeed, too little thought to the subject.
She comes fresh from the schoolroom into the crowded drawing-room,
thinking only how best to enjoy herself. The thought of marriage, if
near, is yet so far, that it hardly interferes with her pleasure in the
waltz, the theatre, or the eternal afternoon tea.

It is a pity that the educational standard fixed for young girls
now-a-days is of so low an order. A smattering of French, a word or two
of German, an _idea_ of what music really means, as gained from a three
years' acquaintance with scales and movements, and songs without
words--this is all! There is, of course, a good deal of reading with
scientific masters that serves only to puzzle the brains half given to
the matter in hand, and then the girl is emancipated from the
schoolroom, and let loose upon society to "be settled in life," says
Mamma.

Some of these girls _do_ marry well--surprisingly so! But they are
amongst the few. As for the rest, they make t